To finally agree with a junior doctors strike

[Horsehow]

Junior doctors have decided to strike as they are being overlooked for jobs / training posts which are instead given to international applicants. I’ve always abhorred their money grabbing strikes in the past, but support this one 100%. UK doctors should be recruited where possible, and international graduates only turned to where we cannot find a suitable recruit in the UK.

Yeah, I'm not going to do that. I've read most of those threads (a DC is currently
a F1) so I am interested. I mostly read. When I post some medic mums don't like what I have to say so I mostly stay out of things

I can't get too worked up about it to be honest. DC has eyes wide open, enjoying work so far and knows what's ahead of them.

Hi all,
It has taken us a great deal of time today to moderate this thread - could we please ask that personal disagreements are not dragged across MN and to ask that from this point everyone on this thread interacts in good faith?

I think that as a country we should be as self sufficient as possible, train our own doctors to all levels, not just rely on importing skills.

Not everyone wants to compete globally, not everyone wants to have to leave the country to progress in their career. They may have family ties, responsibilities or just simply want to stay in their own country.
Not everyone in any profession is a high flyer. We need doctors at every level, not just the elite echelons.

We should only allow overseas doctors from EU or anywhere else to fill places that no-one here wants.

This. Simple. Easy. And cheaper.

Hope it all sorts out before next Dec. As your F1 will be applying for jobs then (get them to check the requirements needed for chosen speciality as some have changed again). And this last year it has been horrible to watch. Current F2s v v worried, even those 'high flying' ones. Competition ratios are only set to increase more.
MSRA is a silly exam to choose future Psychiatrists, Obstetricians etc as was an exam for GPs. And points system now means you need a phD for some roles.

Who are the 2 ? I've not engaged with said poster since confirming grey rock mode (yesterday). In fact I don't even read their posts.
Hopefully no one is disparaging UKGs ? Because that really would be childish.

@Sevillian

I don't know where you find the patience to engage with this thread. It is just as bizarre as those on the same topic that precede it.

One of the people propelling it along has no experience of medicine but spends a great deal of effort helping people, who are by definition not particularly suited to it, to game the admission system. This is in the certain knowledge that most will not end up with consultant or GP posts (regardless of what happens to "IMG"s). 15000 graduates pa., vs 2000 retiral erasures pa. from the GMC register - go figure.

Any attempt to point out that all medical graduates and all medical schools are not the same, and that a gulf has opened between the academic ability of the average entrant to medicine and the requirements of the Royal Colleges, is met with the accusation that UK doctors have been insulted.

Then there is the story that having got into one of the proliferating medical schools with AAB/ABB in PE etc. you are granted "awesome" status, different from every other undergraduate, and deserving of the employment of your choice.

I can't work out if they really believe what they are posting, but I suppose there is something gruesomely compelling about it.

Most do it in HST though, where it is likely to be relevant to their future sub-specialisation.

Doing it in any old topic at FY2 purely to get into IMT seems a spectacular waste of their time and our grant money.

It wouldn’t be childish as such, it would just be very odd.

But the previous threads on this exact same subject simply took a middle ground: that standards of entry have declined with the expansion of medical school numbers as well as other contributory factors, and the sift for which students are going to progress in a medical career now comes at a later stage.

A good wodge of evidence was linked to which illustrated how prior attainment correlated to success in terms of career progression and how certain medical schools seemed to have greater success than others. The heads of medical schools keep their own data too. Anyone who’s in with that particular in crowd could ask what it shows. (I think it’s safe to bet on the fact that some will be readier than others to share it).

I read all the threads and am still can’t take what these posters collectively said as ‘disparaging all UKMGs’. Too many perfectly comprehensible points were/are converted into something quite else to try to undermine the unpalatable but for most people reading, the original points remain clear.

Crossed with Marchesman. I’m currently sitting on a beacon at the edge of the Lake District, getting air and happy to type. I needed a break from the motorway :)

I haven’t ever suggested (on this or any previous thread) that that would be the time to do it though.

Oh I thought you we’re responsible being to this from @PurpleFairyLights

One complete joker that is active on this thread suggested my son did a PhD to help him get into higher surgical training

Absolutely pointless doing a PhD so early in your career. And I work in a specialty where almost all consultants do have a PhD (almost impossible to be shortlisted for interview these days without one. Which, ironically, disadvantages IMGs as few of them want to delay CCT any further).

PurpleFairyLights also said in a post - possibly deleted - that I suggested those unemployed after F2 should consider a PhD. That was followed by how only those who knew in their heart of hearts that they didn’t have the soft skills to do clinical work should do a PhD. The whole PhD thing did seem to make PurpleFairyLights very cross, so it’s interesting that you say virtually no-one in your specialty gets an interview for a consultant post without one.

NHS needs shaking up, Neely qualified nurses with no jobs just loads of debt as trusts have recruitment bans, junior doctors earning peanuts but loads of useless managers earning £70k+ who do nothing other than say there are staffing issues utter madness.

@Sevillian you have said that “standards of entry have declined with the expansion of medical school numbers as well as other contributory factors, and the sift for which students are going to progress in a medical career now comes at a later stage.”

Are you inferring that this is a deliberate “sifting” and that it is the deteriorating quality of graduates that is causing the issue here? Because I don’t think that the data supports that - in 2019, the overall competition ratio was 1.9, with about 9000 UK graduates. This year, with ~30% increase in graduate numbers (to around 12,000), the ratio has increased over 250%, to just over 7.

The evidence here doesn’t support the theory that the previous cohort was of higher quality, just that they faced less/any competition.

I don’t think I’m inferring at all; I think I go well beyond that.

Your ratios don’t say anything about the quality of graduates at all.

There are unfortunately some uninformed people who believe that unless you attend a select few Unis you are a bit inferior (they select those Unis). They believe that the newer Unis are all a bit rubbish. And that if you don't get a job it's because you are a bad doctor, not the insane competition ratios. But most people don't believe this. They see the silly situation this country has got itself into. Our doctors who want to move abroad get any jobs left over after local staff. We let everyone in and so many of our own staff end up unemployed. No other profession has this.

The problem is not the expansion of UK medical school places. It is the amount of IMGs applying to specialty training. In 2025 63% of applicants to UK NHS specialty training were IMGs

91,000 applications this year. For 12,000 ish jobs. 12,000 UKGs. You'd think it would be simple to see the problem to anyone with an ounce of a working brain cell.

Bonkers

RCP see the problem

Unfortunately due to the abolished Resident Labour Market Test the ratios have become ridiculous.

The snobbery about medical schools is thankfully quite rare except on these threads.

There’s nothing ‘snobbish’ about a recognition that not all graduates are equal. It’s not a social thing. It’s absurd to pretend all graduates are equally capable, however much someone wishes they were.

The same graduates are making it through the road blocks and that will continue.

I know the ratios don’t say anything about quality - that was the exact point that I made when I was questioning you on your assertion that they do.

Also, not “my ratios” - I believe they are data released annually by the NHS and quoted in multiple medical journals, as well as mainstream media.